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Protecting the Vote means Protecting our Voters: Phase 6 of Hope Springs GOTV Plan (Watching Polls) [1]
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Date: 2022-10-28
There are two ways to plan a campaign, one is to plan forward to election day and the other is to plan backward from election day. But then there are those campaigns that not so much plan by the seat of their pants as plan by the resources (generally money, but also volunteers, free media, etc) made available in the course of the campaign. Hope Springs from Field PAC’s GOTV plan, almost two years in the making, was to plan backwards from Election Day. (You might call this the Hope and Pray way of planning.)
Hope Springs from Field PAC’s GOTV plan is an interconnected and related effort to drive and increase voter turnout for the midterms, including making every effort to ensure that our voter’s votes count. There are basically six phases to this Get-Out-the-Vote plan for 2022. Phase One was organizing New Voter Postcards and followup communications with New Voters to the 15,737 new Voters we registered at the doors since June 2021 in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Phase 2 of Hope Springs’ GOTV effort was collating the 1,373 Incident Reports we collected at the doors, combining them with other databases of Election Day Intimidation and Suppression, analyzing the data and combining that with other indicators of possible election interference this year. Phase 3 has been the recruiting of attorneys willing to serve as floating legal eagles on Election Day and familiarizing them with the data we’ve collected from canvassing, prior incidences & reports as well as administrative action taken in the past.
Phase Four has been organizing, training and activating the mentors who we have recruited to interact with the 15,737 new Voters we registered in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Phase Five is Ballot Curing, curing voter signatures for Absentee Voters to make sure their vote counts. The final part of our GOTV plan is recruiting, training and assigning Poll Watchers as well as setting up Polling Observation Tables in precincts that have historical patterns of problematic behavior, voter intimidation or suppression, or otherwise have been recorded in our Incident Reports.
Throughout the last 18 months or so, we have been recruiting people who would be interested in serving as poll watchers, a rather huge commitment on Election Day. Just asking from our own organizer lists, we found 2,940 volunteers to serve in this capacity, many willing to make multiple day commitments as poll watchers (early voting, etc). Through our partnerships with Black Churches in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin, we found another 2,156 volunteers. Through our alliances with the Divine Nines, we found 948 volunteers. Both these groups had people who canvassed with us through the Spring and Summer, and those who did who are now volunteering in these capacities have been counted in the first category, just because they had direct contact with an organizer. Another 163 Obama alums volunteered to serve in these capacities, alums who had not canvassed with us before. Finally, we had 41 voters who stopped at one of out Election Protection Observation Tables in the primaries who volunteered to serve in one of these capacities for the General Election! It’s hard to say of which group i am the most proud, but the voters who came out in the primaries and are volunteering for Election Protection in the general is pretty amazing to me.
Anyone we recruited to serve as poll watchers were offered to the candidate and coordinated campaigns, to fill their needs. As i have repeated through the last two years, we aren’t in competition with Democratic candidates. But many (most?) of the polling places that we’ve identified as problematic are not necessarily of interest to them. We are focused on addressing historical patterns and these aren’t necessarily in precincts with high turnouts or in swingy areas.
As anyone who have read my canvass reports knows, the use of Incident Reports is a huge asset that Hope Springs from Field employs. Nothing made that more clear than when Early Voting started in Georgia. For some reason, there are GOP poll watchers, observers or even just plain voters who don’t want their names recorded or their behavior at the polls documented. I can’t explain why. But apparently there are Republicans, or Trumpists or conservatives (only god knows how they think of themselves) who think they should be able to disrupt election activity without it being documented by Democrats. And, just as obviously, we don’t agree. But just like in North Carolina, we aren’t backing down because a few right-wingers think they need to be coddled. They are a whiny bunch.
What has become really obvious is that, despite the fact that Republicans argue that “increased poll watching will give voters more confidence that elections are running smoothly and ensure any irregularities are caught,” they must mean their poll watchers. They seem to think that we would never match their effort (because, you know, this is something new! /snark) or training. Not sure why.
But that is our biggest contribution to Election Protection: training poll watchers, arming them with Incident Reports and making them aware of historical patterns of bad behavior and election suppression that has occurred in their polling places. One very LWV activist who asked if she had to get the briefing was surprised at the information she was provided. “I thought I knew what to watch out for,” and complimented our organizers for giving her a cheat sheet of historical behavior at her polling place.
You might have read that this is exactly what John Eastman is telling Republicans. “Create a record.” Which Democrats have been doing for years (and using that documentation in court). As the Trumpists make every effort to find the fraud that their dear leader asserts must exist, we are even more compelled to be prepared to document their activity, their efforts to deny Americans their basic right to vote, and especially their attempts to continue the fraud. We can’t be out-smarted here.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors, serve as a resource to Elections Committees in Black Churches and partnering with local civics and civil rights groups to raise awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022electionprotection
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. Election Protection was central to the Obama primary effort in 2008 because we were running against a party favorite with strong roots in state and local party organizations and we needed to appeal to voters outside that framework. We are returning to the old school basics: looking for patterns, addressing issues that have come up in the past and making sure authorities know about issues that are likely to (or even just may) come up in this election. Especially in light of True the Vote activities in majority minority areas.
In polling locations with historical patterns of voter intimidation and/or suppression, we are establishing outside observers (teams which will not need nor receive poll credentials) to be placed at the entrances of these polling locations. In Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, we’ve identified 184 polling places that fits our definition of historical patterns of primary voter intimidation. At these locations, if the campaigns don’t place a poll watcher inside, we will, and we will also be setting up Election Protection/Voter Assistance (or what we call Incident) tables outside. At these, 2 or 3 people will man an Incidence Table from a half hour after polls open to a half hour after they close (if possible, generally in 4 hour shifts). They basically act as support teams, both for the Poll Watchers inside as well as voters outside. We found in the primaries that this back-up system gave our voters and poll watchers greater confidence in their ability to vote and/or do their job.
These support teams for poll watchers will serve as pre- and post- voting alert and reporting functions so that voters who see something can say something. But the primary function of these very visible observer stations are to let voters and those with ill intent to know that we are there. Reuters reports that “Two in five U.S. voters say they are worried about threats of violence or voter intimidation at polling stations during the country's midterm elections” and the presence of these Election Protection/Voter Assistance tables should help here. Voters will have more confidence that they can vote in November without being harassed if they know we were there in the primary. And this does matter. Voters need to feel they can cast their ballot without feeling threatened.
We are also expanding our selfie stations that we first set up during the North Carolina primaries. We found that these were well-used by voters after they voted.
Protecting the vote can be pro-active. Even with all the "new" tactics that Trump and his supporters brought out in 2020 (trying to overturn the Electoral College is definitely new!), most voter suppression tactics are old and occur in the same places. Even though the internet allows for greater distribution of knowledge about efforts to keep (largely) minorities from voting, the locations or targets of that activity tends to be the same locations year in and year out. So we know where we need to be connecting with voters who might have faced voter intimidation, suppression or even violence and where we can expect it to happen in future elections. Which is why we track it and then act on it with documentation. Be prepared.
If you are able to support our efforts to mobilize these difficult, brand new voters to cast their ballots in November, especially in minority communities, expanding the electorate, or just believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please donate:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022electionprotection
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!
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